


so long to the headstrong

by spock



Category: Chronicle (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Cousin Incest, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:54:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve hops down into the crater like a fucking ninja and Matt's right behind him. It's the fear of what they might get up to without him there to act as a barrier that makes Andrew go down with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so long to the headstrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SteelStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteelStar/gifts).



Steve's got a sketchy uncle that his mom doesn't like him spending all that much time with. He’s Steve’s father's step-brother, ten years younger than his dad, so it’s not as if they’re really related in any way that counts. The guy dropped out of community college to work at a local donut shop back in the nineties and never looked back; he and Steve have absolutely nothing in common. It's mostly a business relationship.

So yeah, maybe his mom has a decent enough reason to keep Steve from hanging out at his uncle’s place all the time, but it's not like Steve actually _wants_ to anyway. He only stops by once or twice a month after classes, for less than an hour at most, but it's not as if he can tell his mom what for.

Then his sketchy uncle loses his medical marijuana card — and seriously, how fucking dumb do you have to be to get caught dealing your state-issued weed — and Steve finds himself without any reason to go see the idiot.

Besides, dropping his uncle like a piece of hot coal makes his mom happy, so he counts it as a win. 

The day after his uncle breaks the news, Steve asks around at school to see if there's anyone on campus who can help fill the newly vacated hole in his life. One person's name comes up more than the others; phrases like _quality shit_ and _the best prices_ tacked on with it that really help seal the deal: Matt Garetty it is. 

*

"It's a nice camera," his mom says, pausing like she has more to say but isn't sure if she should, but eventually she does. "Your Aunt Deb called yesterday, 'round dinner time?" 

She phrases it like it's a question he should know the answer to, so he nods as if he has some semblance of an idea as to what she's talking about and it's enough to get her to continue. 

"Matt came out to them yesterday." 

Andrew keeps on nodding, like it's no big deal, or maybe like he already knew, hinting that he and Matt are closer than they really are, but all he can think is that it figures. 

Figures that while Andrew's long since realized, but never stopped struggling with, he's never had any feelings for a girl — never for a girl, but more than just _any_ for his cousin, fuck — Matt would come out of the closet and have the whole family accept it with open arms problem. Better yet, with no questions asked. 

"He's still the same person," his mom tacks on when Andrew doesn't say anything, just keeps on jerking his head up and down, lips pressed together so tightly that they're nothing but two white lines slashed across his already pale face. "Be good to him."

"Yeah, mom, course I will."

Fucking figures.

*

Andrew’s been waiting on the curb in front of his house for a minute or two before he hears the roar of the engine that always precedes Matt's Nova echo down along the street. A couple beats later and he's rolling up in front of Andrew and parking along the curve. 

He hikes his shoulder up to resettle the camera's weight, shifting on his feet towards the door when he notices there's somebody else in the car, taking his usual place in the passenger seat. "Um," Andrew says, not unkindly.

The guy jumps in his seat and turns his head away from Matt to look out the window, body jerking in surprise like he’s noticing for the first time that they'd actually stopped and pulled over, and Andrew realizes that it's Steve Montgomery — Steve _fucking_ Montgomery, and Andrew can't help but feel his hackles rise, even though he doesn't have a reason for it. Not really, but he's been forced to learn that it's better to be safe than sorry. 

"Shit! Sorry man, let me just..." Steve trails off, unhooking his seatbelt and climbing over the bench to get into the back seat. 

Matt makes a disgruntled noise and yells out, "Watch the seats, Montgomery!" But he can't be too mad, because he's sorta-smiling as he says it, even takes one hand off the wheel to reach up and blindly swat at Steve's behind. He gets more thigh than anything else. 

Andrew opens the door and hovers outside it awkwardly as Steve flops into the back and Matt tosses his bag back to him. Once Steve's situated, Andrew slides inside, takes his seat, and shuts the door; Matt swerves away from the curb and takes off down the street again. 

Andrew isn't sure what to do with himself but before silence even has the chance to _think_ about descending on the three of them, Steve's hand pops up near Andrew's ear, hovering just inside his line of vision. "Hey, Andrew, right? I'm Steve. Steve Montgomery." Andrew twists around in his seat to look at him.

"Yeah, I know," Andrew blurts out, proud that his voice doesn't break around the words. That's about all he has to be proud of based on the look that Matt shoots him, if that. Everyone at their school knows who Steve is — hell, practically everybody in their fucking _town_ does — so Andrew figures that it would have been weirder if he acted like he had no idea who he was, fuck what Matt thinks.

Steve takes it in stride, dropping his hand to rest on the back of the bench when it becomes obvious Andrew isn't going to shake it. "Really?" He's smiling. Andrew wonders what it's like to have people you've never met before know who you are, that you come to _expect_ it. "Oh, that's right!" Steve's hand snaps back up, finger pointing at Andrew's face in a way that Andrew's mom would frown at. "Andrew _Detmer_! I remember you from homeroom freshman year. You always had that gray zip-up hoodie." He drops his hand on Andrew's shoulder and shakes it a few times, like they're sharing an inside joke.

Matt's eyes flick back and forth between the two of them, frown carving itself deep into his face. He slides them back to look at the road, but sure enough they're back on Andrew and Steve as soon as he steers around a slight bend.

"So uh, should I ask about the camera or...?" Matt asks, when the lull in Andrew and Steve's conversation switches over into awkward territory. 

"I don't know. I'm—I'm filming things now. I'm filming everything." Steve makes an intrigued noise and leans towards the door, trying to reach up and get a good look at Andrew’s camera where it’s sitting on his right shoulder. Andrew scooches up toward the dash to stop him from touching it.

"Filming everything..." Matt angles his head towards the passenger seat, trying to catch Andrew’s gaze with his own, but Steve's still trying to grab at Andrew's camera, his seatbelt stopping him from leaning forward enough to get at it. 

"Yeah," Andrew replies distractedly, wondering when trying to stop Steve from touching his stuff turned into a game of keep-away. One that he's actually enjoying, despite himself.

"Okay," Matt says, voice clipped. 

Steve's phone makes a sound and his attention is finally off Andrew, a first since Andrew got in the car. Andrew leans back into the seat, re-situating his camera, and looks at Matt's long hands where they've got the steering wheel in a death grip, knuckles white.

"Um, hey," Andrew starts, remembering the conversation he had with his mom before he left the house, "So my mom told me about—" 

"Yeah!" Matt practically shouts, eyes darting up to look at the rear view mirror into the backseat at Steve, who's dicking around on his phone, not even paying attention to them. "Awesome, that's great. Good talk," he says in a rush, before reaching out to flip on the radio. 

Steve groans at what’s playing. "Ugh, seriously? I can't stand this damn song. Matt, change the station." 

What Steve doesn't know — but Andrew _does_ , he thinks smugly— is that's the last thing you should ever tell Matt, because dude's an asshole, always has been, always will be. True to his nature, Matt turns up the volume and starts singing along obnoxiously and off-key, throwing himself into it. Steve groans like he's dying, and Matt just starts singing louder, tossing in hand motions for good measure.

Andrew looks down through the viewfinder to make sure he's getting it all on camera.

*

Matt nearly clips a kid as they navigate through the parking lot, but they make it to school in one piece all the same. Andrew's unbuckled his seatbelt and has the door popped before Matt's even killed the engine. Matt turns to dig around the floorboards of his seat as Steve's slips back over the seat to sit in the front again; Matt turns back around to face them when he finds what he was looking for, pulling up his stash.

"Are you not coming in?" Andrew asks, unsure. 

"We're gonna hang back a while, 'kay?"

"You're gonna be late for first period." He watches as Steve slips a lighter out of the pocket of his letterman's jacket and passes it over to Matt. 

"Naw, don't even worry about it, man. We'll be in before the late bell. It'll be cool." Steve smiles at Andrew as he says it, waving before shooing Andrew away from the door and slamming it closed. Matt would give him serious shit if he did that, but he's quiet when it comes to Steve.

*

As he's making his way through the halls after lunch, Andrew gets accosted by Justin and his friends. Justin passes off Andrew's camera to one of his cronies, nearly dropping it, before pulling Andrew into a headlock. 

He slaps Andrew around while everyone in the hallway watches, not a one of them saying anything or trying to step in to help him out. His face feels like it's on fire, from the embarrassment and pain both. He manages to break out of the hold just as the first bell rings, and his feet nearly slip out from under him as he rushes to get out of Justin's reach, pressing himself against the lockers on the other side of the hall so that none of Justin’s flunkies can get the jump on him from behind.

"Come on, give it back," Andrew says, holding his head up high, feeling a million things and none of them coming close to pride.

Justin talks more shit and pulls his foot back, is about to kick Andrew's camera across the hall to him when Steve breaks through the crowd and wraps an arm around Andrew's shoulder.

"Hey, what's everybody looking at?" He looks around at all the people closest to them, onlookers who didn't even bat an eyelash at Andrew getting assaulted, yet now shrink under Steve's unwavering gaze. "Shit, Andrew did you drop your camera? Oh, hey, Justin, right?" Steve asks, his tone sticky-sweet. Andrew watches as Justin and his friends practically curl in on themselves, shoulders hunched, and drop their eyes to the floor. "Do my boy Andrew here a solid and hand him his camera, would you?" 

Justin trips over himself to get the camera before handing it over to Andrew— cradles it like it's a fucking newborn and not the _piece of shit_ he'd claimed it to be not a minute before — all the while avoiding Steve's eyes before he bolts down the hall. 

Steve pats his shoulder a couple times, before he spots his friends making their way down the hall towards their next class. Andrew can feel the heat of Steve's arm as it slides along his shoulders before finally falling away as he takes off to join up with them. 

*

Matt bails on Andrew as soon as they get inside the rave, mumbling something about checking back in with him in a couple hours before disappearing behind the thrum of bodies.

Andrew gets himself into trouble in less than half that, which somehow doesn't surprise him any longer. He heads outside to lick his wounds without people watching him. Judging him. 

He sits down beneath a tree out behind where people parked their cars, branches barren this late in the year, wet winter chill seeping up through the denim of his jeans and making him shiver. Andrew carefully sets his camera down beside him on the driest patch of grass he can find. Pulling the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands, he swipes at his eyes angrily before doing the same with his nose. 

The longer he sits out there, alone and cold as fuck, the more worked up he gets, his breaths coming out short and clipped as tears leak out from his tightly shut eyes. Eventually he gets himself together, slowly stops crying, and bends over to wipe down his camera's lens. 

For once time is on his side, because it's only after he's already calmed down, sobs no longer wracking him, that he hears Steve calling out for him. Andrew's head snaps up at hearing his name. He watches as Steve navigates through two cars parked too close together, his stride more clumsy than usual. Andrew jerks his head to the side and wipes his face on the shoulder of his hoodie, hoping get rid of any lingering tear tracks that he might have missed before. His eyes have to be red as hell, but hopefully it's dark enough outside that Steve won't notice. If he even cares.

"Andrew," Steve says again, "And you've got the camera! We found the _craziest_ shit and you've got to get in on..." he trails off, hunching down to stare at Andrew’s face and frowns. "What's up, man? You okay?" He sounds, looks genuinely concerned and it's the last thing Andrew needs right now. 

He blows off Steve's concern and pulls his camera closer to his side, brings Steve's attention back to why he came looking for him in the first place. "Matt and I were just," Steve pauses for a split second, and Andrew takes in how wide his pupils are and how slick his mouth looks and Andrew feels an unfamiliar sort of rage and hurt rise up inside him. He can imagine what Steve and Matt were _just doing_ , "hanging out and we found this cool little—this _thing_ —" 

"Wait," Andrew doesn't give a shit about whatever dumb thing they discovered while high and getting off together, "you were with Matt?" He waits for Steve to backtrack and explain it all away. Explain _Matt_ away, so that Andrew can prove to himself that the only reason Steve's messing around with Matt is because Steve's slutty, or maybe Steve's just willing to sink that low to score free weed. Because Andrew doesn't know how he'll be able to stomach it if Steve's somehow the reason for Matt coming out, especially if that means Matt and Steve might actually have a chance of getting together for real.

Steve shrugs like it's no big deal, keeps pestering Andrew to go back with him to record whatever it is they found. 

*

Steve hops down into the crater like a fucking ninja and Matt's right behind him. It's the fear of what they might get up to without him there to act as a barrier that makes Andrew go down with them.

*

Andrew loses his camera, but Matt buys him a new one.

*

Over the next three weeks they spend nearly every waking moment together. Sometimes they spend their _sleeping_ moments together, unable to tear themselves away from one another long enough to go home, so they crash at Matt’s or Steve's. 

Aunt Deb says she's glad to see Andrew around the house, shoots Matt proud looks every time Matt drags him away from talking to her. Mrs. Montgomery's taken a shine to him as well; if she's home when Matt and he come over she always makes sure to herd Andrew into the kitchen before he disappears into Steve's room, stuffs yogurt and bags of mini vegetables into his arms before patting his face and sending him on his way. 

The last time Andrew slept over at a friends house, it was with Matt and his siblings one night when he was ten, right around the time Andrew’s mom got sick. 

For the first time in his life Andrew has bruises that don't have a sad story behind them. He pokes and prods them when he showers, smiles like a lunatic at the bite of pain and feels cathartic relief spread whenever a mark he got from Steve or Matt overtakes the ones his dad puts on him. 

*

Steve's unofficially broken up with his sometimes-girlfriend, but she refuses to take a hint. He always lets her go to voicemail and at the end of the day he plays her messages on speaker so they can make fun of them. 

"We're his mistress," Andrew jokes, barely keeping a straight face before they're all losing their shit.

*

Matt's got a family thing, so Andrew tags along with Steve when he drives into the city one night. The drive in was comfortably silent, but once they get downtown Steve starts in about the camera again, something he's been doing more and more lately.

"Maybe I want a barrier," Andrew eventually snaps, the most defensive he’s felt around Steve in a while, his walls rebuilding themselves. Steve's eyes drift slowly off the road and towards Andrew in the passenger seat before returning to the asphalt soaring past them. He stretches out his right hand and places it on Andrew's knee, squeezing lightly. After a while he asks Andrew about his dad.

He never bothers to remove his hand.

*

At the lake Andrew finally gets up the courage to ask if Matt likes him. He knows that Matt'll misunderstand the question but, baby-steps and all that.

"Um—yeah, of course," Matt turns to look at him and shrugs. "I mean, you know, I didn't—I didn't _always_."

Andrew backs away, slowly, feeling his voice waver when he asks, "What do you mean?" As soon as Matt starts to explain Andrew decides that he doesn't want to hear it, and tries to play it off as a joke. 

When they decide to head back to the car, Matt stops him just as they get back to the passenger side door. He pulls Andrew into the tightest, most intense hug of his life. Andrew has a million different things he wants to say, to ask, but he can't bring himself to give voice to them. Eventually he decides to just hug Matt back, brings his arms up to wrap around him and clutch Matt just as hard. Harder. 

*

Things have been going so well with Matt and Steve that Andrew honestly doesn't notice how _strong_ he's gotten — it all still feels abstract, and contained; they mostly use their powers to pull off dumb pranks and stunts, haven't really found a genuine purpose for them. Shit, it was just a week ago that Andrew finally felt comfortable enough to use it to jerk off without worrying that he'd somehow rip off his fucking dick with his goddamn _mind_. It doesn't hit home until Andrew inadvertently drives that asshole off the road with a sweep of his hand and practically kills him. 

Now they have to have _rules_.

*

When he sees Steve knocked out of the air, Andrew reacts purely on instinct and the next thing he knows he's hitting the ground like a sack of bricks, air forced from his lungs in a rush. He tastes blood and knows instantly that it's from another nosebleed, sliding back along his sinuses to drip down his throat and pool in his mouth. 

"Oh shit! I almost died, dude! Ho—ly shit!" Steve pounces on him, mouth still running, pulls him to his feet, wraps his arms around Andrew's middle and spins him around like he's weightless. 

They both drop down onto the grass again as Steve falls on top of him. Steve starts peppering kisses along Andrew's cheeks and brow before he finally makes contact with his lips. Steve kisses him hard, not even balking at Andrew's blood-slick mouth.

Steve kisses him and Andrew tries his best not to make it into something more than it is. This is what people do when they have near-death experiences. Instinct forces them to prove to themselves that they're still alive. 

Suddenly, Steve’s eyes tear themselves from Andrew's face. "Holy _shit_ , is that the camera? You saved me _and_ the camera? Please tell me you got that on tape?" He won't stop shaking Andrew, looking at him like he's the most amazing thing Steve's ever seen before and it makes Andrew choke out a laugh, even though he's still gasping for breath. 

Matt yells as he crashes down a few feet away from them, and only then does Steve manage to pry himself from Andrew. He stagger-runs over to Matt and flops down on top of him, hugs him around his middle for a few seconds before getting up and tackling Andrew back down to the ground after he'd only just managed to pick himself up.

They can fly. 

*

They're in Steve's room, still jittery with leftover adrenaline, even though they've all taken a couple hits off of Matt's emergency joint in the hopes that it'd calm them down, and somehow they get on the topic of the last time they had sex. Steve's last time was before he started ditching his ex-girlfriend to hang out with the two of them, and Matt's been on a dry streak since summer. 

"I haven't had sex since _ever_ ," Andrew finds himself saying, but as soon as he realizes that he actually said that — said as in _out loud_ , for other people to hear — he wishes he could stuff the words back in his mouth.

Matt and Steve genuinely seem shocked, which Andrew supposes he should find flattering. The razz him over it, but not for long and not nearly as bad as he was expecting. He finds himself laughing along. 

A couple minutes after their laughter dies out, Matt reaches out a hand towards him, makes a grabbing motion until Andrew finally gets the hint and takes it, lets Matt tug him forward. Andrew crashes onto the bed next to Matt, bouncing a few times before rolling onto his side so that he can look at Matt's face. Matt fists the hand of the arm he isn't lying on into Andrew's shirt and stays silent, so Andrew raises his own to flick Matt on the forehead before letting his hand drop back between them, his fingers lightly brushing Matt's chest.

Matt stares into his eyes for a while, but Andrew's feeling too mellow and _accepted_ to freak out over it like he usually would. Then, like everything's in slow motion, Matt's hand tugs hard enough to get Andrew to roll into him, and then Matt lifts his head up to kiss him, bringing their mouths together in a careful, close-lipped press of lips that makes Andrew's brain stall out.

All of a sudden times' moving back at its normal rate again and Matt pulls away, drops his head down onto the bed. He finally lets go of Andrew's shirt so that he can bring his hand up and trace his pointer finger around the edge of Andrew's mouth. 

Steve's quiet laugh breaks Andrew out of his trance, and his eyes jump to where he's sitting at the chair at his desk. He's swiveled so that he's facing the two of them on the bed, his legs spread wide and Andrew can't help but notice the slight bulge along his right pant leg. Steve drops his hand down over top the outline of it and squeezes. Andrew feels his face heat up as he guiltily brings his gaze up to meet Steve's own, embarrassed for having been caught watching, but not for Steve having caught him making out with his cousin. 

Hell, if anything he feels bad because it feels like they're leaving Steve _out_.

Steve sticks his arm out to click off his computer monitor, before getting up and making his way over the bed. He crawls first over Matt and then Andrew before settling in and lying down between Andrew and the wall. 

Matt smiles at the two of them, eyes slit open just enough to see. He props himself up on the arm he'd been lying on and leans over Andrew. Steve meets him halfway and they kiss each other. Andrew rolls so that he's on his back, watching the pair of them above him. He feels jealous and yet not, it's a new feeling and he fucking loves it. Loves that it feels _right_. Steve runs a hand over the side of Matt's face as he kisses him — open mouthed and full of tongue, different from the way Matt kissed Andrew, but it's obvious even to a novice like Andrew that the feelings behind it are the same — before dropping it to touch Andrew instead, strokes absentmindedly at the hollow of Andrew's throat. 

Steve breaks off and cants his head so that he can speak right into Matt's ear, voice pitched too low for Andrew to make out what he's saying, even though the room is quiet. They pull back and grin at one another, Matt leaning in to press a final kiss against Steve's lips before he drops down and buries his face in the side of Andrew's neck. Steve does the same, and Andrew hesitantly slips his arms out from where they were squashed against his body and wraps them around the two of them, holding them to him as tight as he can. 

Steve's mom knocks and asks through the door when they're going to start getting ready for bed. Steve yells back _soon_ , and they hear her walk back down the hall towards the living room. 

They stay like that — curled around one another — for a good, long while.

*

They don't get past necking, but Andrew's not exactly complaining. His chest is a mottled mess of hickeys by the time they finally break apart and slip into their own beds — bruises tattooed on his skin that feel even sweeter than the ones he'd earned when they first started training. 

They're all just about nodding off to sleep when Matt asks if they're still up, dragging them back into consciousness for just a few more moments. "I, uh— Today was like. Was like, I think, the best day of my life. Like, I mean— I'm. I'm _thinking_ about it and I can't. I can't think of any day I like better than today, you know? I really— I think it was." 

He's struggling so hard to make them understand, but there's no need. Andrew knows _exactly_ what he means, can't find the right words to encompass all of what they've been through together in this _single_ fucking day either. It’s why he’s got the camera hovering in the air above them, why he needs to make sure he gets all of them in the frame to somehow sum up all the mind blowing things that happened to him today.

"Yeah," is all he says in the end. Steve rolls over to look at the pair of them, and says, "Unanimous." 

Matt settles back into the couch and mumbles, "Okay. Good."

Because what else is there to say?

*

They're hanging out after school, walking the back roads towards Steve's neighborhood when Matt gets a text from his dad asking him to pick up some stuff for his mom's birthday party because he's held up at work. After he hangs up, Matt sighs and apologizes for having to bail. He'd been walking ahead of them, and when takes a step back towards them to say goodbye to them he — stalls.

It's a familiar occurrence. They've only been doing this — this _thing_ for a week or so, and even then they haven't gotten past kissing, except for last weekend when they were all stretched out on their respective 'beds' at Steve's place and jerked off while watching each other. 

Health Class didn't exactly have a section on how to have two boyfriends at the same time. They're basically making it up as they go along. 

Steve takes the initiative as usual, grabs Andrew's hand and drags him to where Matt's standing. He leans in and presses a kiss on Matt's lips, short and sweet. He shoulders Andrew in towards Matt to do the same. After Andrew pulls away, Steve yanks him in by their still-clasped hands so they can kiss one another, and only then does Steve look satisfied. "See," he says smugly, "that was fine and totally normal and not at all weird. We'll be fine without your pasty ass, Matt, so go do something nice for your mom for once."

Matt backs off with his hands raised in surrender, smiling at them before he takes off to fly home. Steve watches him go, then turns back to look at Andrew and asks what he wants to do. Andrew doesn't have any solid plans, but he knows the one thing he doesn't want to do is go home any sooner than he has to, so he says they might as well go into the city.

*

Thing's have been far, far better for Andrew at school ever since Steve started hanging out with them non-stop. He no longer eats lunch alone, doesn't have to worry about watching his back in the hallways. He's always been a smart kid, not a genius or anything, but smart enough, and his grades are slowly starting to reflect that again. It's not like he's in danger of flunking out, or even that the higher grades can change all that much when it comes to his GPA after four years this late in the game, but his teachers still notice and write nice comments on his tests and papers, and Andrew realizes that he's missed that. He shows them to his mom and she looks so proud. His dad will hover in the doorway, looking suspicious, but even he isn't that much of an asshole to find something wrong with Andrew doing above-average in school again.

On the days that Matt can't give him a ride home, Steve picks up the slack, so he doesn't even have to worry about the assholes who troll the park down the street from his house any longer either. He didn't think it could get any better than that. Can't imagine it.

The talent show isn't something that Andrew ever could have imagined in his wildest dreams. 

*

They get to the after party and Andrew feels like a celebrity. Steve left earlier than them, Andrew delayed by his newfound fans and Matt having to stay behind with him as his designated ride, so Matt and Andrew make the drive up without him, fully expecting Steve to be there already. They spent a good five minutes making out after getting in the car _and_ getting out of it. Now that they're here, Andrew wants to find Steve so that he can kiss him too.

People swarm around him once they enter the backyard, which must be signal enough of their arrival for Steve, because before either Matt or Andrew even get the chance to pull their phones out of their pockets and text him, he's already there, herding Andrew between himself and Matt so they can both toss their arms over his shoulder. 

They leave Andrew to have his moment, classmates hanging off of his every word, genuinely liking him — as genuine as a bunch of fake assholes who'd basically ignored him not twelve hours prior can be, anyway — for the first time in Andrew's whole life.

It doesn't take long for Andrew to remember what he wanted when they first arrived, so he breaks off from his _adoring fans_ , of all the fucking things, and goes off in search of his — of his boyfriends. 

Matt's the one he finds first, sacked out on one of the outdoor couches fiddling with Andrew's camera, passing a joint back and forth with the guy next to him. Andrew walks up and his eyes zero in on Matt's stoned face, charmed despite himself. "Hey, Matt," he calls, trying to be heard over the music. "Matt! Where's Steve?" 

Matt opens one eye and shrugs, "I dunno." 

Andrew frowns and gets walks closer to the couch so he can kick at Matt's feet. "Matt. _Where's Steve_?" He asks again, pointedly. It takes a couple seconds, but then both of Matt's eyes pop open and he hops up off the couch. 

"Right, _Steve_. I do not know," he repeats, pronouncing each syllable carefully and sounding awkward and guilty as fuck because of it. "Shall we go out in search of him?"

They find him at the beer pong table and he catches on far quicker than Matt did. The three of them make their way into the house, hunting around for a room with a bed and a door that locks. Steve wraps his arms around Andrew's shoulders from behind as they head up the stairs, acting far drunker than Andrew knows he actually is as a cover to get handsy with Andrew in public. They finally find an empty guest room at the end of the hall and they trip over one another in their haste to slip inside without anybody noticing them. Before they'd gone onstage, Steve told him how hot he got seeing Andrew wearing his clothes. Matt had told him the same thing on the drive over — that it was doing things to his dick to _see_ Andrew but _smell_ Steve — so Andrew's thinking they'll have to loan one another clothes more often. 

The door slams behind him and Andrew turns the lock with an absentminded thought as he uses both hands to reach for the lapels of Steve's blazer, yanks him in until their mouths crash together. Kissing Steve is different from kissing Matt because with Steve it's always a game, a fight — Steve physically stronger while Andrew's got more strength and control over his powers. It's a never-ending match that neither of them can win fairly. 

Matt slides up behind Andrew and slides Steve-now-Andrew's suit jacket off of him, then reaches beyond him to do the same for Steve. He tries to gently push them towards the bed in the middle of the room, before getting impatient. He winds up shoving the pair of them down on it and Andrew laughs before rolling toward the headboard to narrowly avoid being crushed under Steve, while Steve just growls and grabs one of Matt's hands to yank him down with them.

Steve starts kissing Matt and Andrew uses opportunity to get undressed. He watches dazedly as Matt slots one of his legs between Steve's and pushes his thigh up until it's pressed tight against Steve's half-hard dick, obvious especially through his thing dress pants. Steve starts grinding against it instantly, desperate for more than just a little friction. They start grunting into one another's mouths, aggressively grinding their bodies together on the bed.

Andrew's down to just his boxer-briefs and he's tired of waiting. He shoves Matt's hips away from Steve's and holds them down against the covers with both hands, undoes his fly with his mind and uses it to get Matt's pants down around his knees in one continuous movement; Matt's not wearing underwear, but he never does. He's hard enough that Andrew's pretty sure he won't be able to last through much more foreplay, even with all the weed in his system, but he's wanted to suck Matt's dick for years and he's not going to stop himself now.

" _Fuck_ ," Steve hisses out from between his teeth. Andrew realizes his manhandling of Matt's body must have pulled their mouths apart. He looks up at them and smiles, and Steve cusses again before reaching down to thread his fingers through Andrew's hair, angling his head back towards Matt's dick.

Andrew takes a deep breath, licks his lips and then dips his head down to lick around the length of Matt's cock. He starts at the base, sucking one of his balls into his mouth and then the other. Then he moves back up, licking along the underside before finally getting to the head, lets it slip inside his mouth. He holds it there for a few seconds, tasting Matt's precome before slowly slinking down, carefully breathing through his nose. He's nervous and unsure a little bit scared that he's doing it wrong, only knows what he's supposed to do thanks to porn where guys always look like old pros even when they're supposed to be the hesitant virgins like Andrew himself. When Matt finally bottoms out Andrew feels like he might throw up, letting out a tiny noise of protest, discomfort. Steve grips his hair tighter in his fist and helps pull him up before the thought becomes fact; his hand providing an anchor, a safety-net that Andrew hadn't even known he'd needed until it was given. It supplies him with the confidence to give deep-throating another go as he takes Matt back into his mouth.

"Shit, _fuck_ ," Matt grunts out weakly, his torso curling up so that his body brackets Andrew’s. "Fuck, _no_ , _no_ , _no_ , _no_ , _no_ —" he gasps, gently gripping Andrew's jaw to pull his mouth off him. Andrew's inhalations sound wet and raspy as he opens his eyes to meet Matt's, wondering what he did wrong. Steve's scoots down the bed to start kissing along his shoulders and down his back, fingers dipping beneath Andrew's underwear. Matt just keeps on shaking his head, mumbling things like _so good_ and _too close_ in between the kisses he shares with Andrew, tasting himself on Andrew's lips.

"Fuck me, please, _fuck_ , one of you fuck me." Matt begs.Twin shudders ripple through Andrew and Steve's bodies — Andrew hadn’t even let himself _think_ about this before because _fuck_ — with Steve recovering first. He slaps Andrew's shoulder and says, "You're up, Drew," before getting up from the bed to stand next to it. He roots around in his pockets and drops a travel-sized plastic squeeze-top bottle of lube and three or four condoms next to Andrew's hand before starting to unbutton his shirt.

Andrew's watches as Matt picks them up from the bedspread. He shoves them at Andrew before pinning him with a look and biting down on his lip like one of those damn porn stars himself. 

Steve climbs back up next to them, naked as the day he was born, settling himself in front of Matt, back facing the other edge of the bed, getting him settled in between his legs. He takes a moment to yank Matt's shirt and hoodie up and off his head, then kicks out in Andrew's general diction to get him moving again. 

Andrew jolts in shock, but gets back with the program all the same. He pulls Matt's pants all the way off and grabs a pillow away from the headboard. Between Steve and himself, they manage to get Matt to turn over so that he's laying on his stomach, and Andrew stuffs the pillow under his hips. 

Steve's dick slides and pokes into the dimple of Matt's cheek, making him moan. Matt's breath is hot as he pants against Steve’s crotch, using his tongue and lips to angle it more towards his mouth. Andrew presses his dick against the cleft of Matt's ass as he watches the two of them and Matt cants his hips so that he can grind himself back on Andrew's cock. "You gonna watch Andrew fuck me?" Matt asks Steve from where he's licking around the head of his dick. 

Andrew and Steve moan in tandem again, which makes Matt flash one if his dopey grins. Andrew pops the top off the lube and pours half of it over his fingers, some of it dripping down onto the bed. When he goes in to start prepping Matt, Andrew's fingers catch awkwardly against the furled skin of his hole as he tries to slick up the rim before sinking the first finger inside of him. Andrew listens to the sounds Matt's mouth makes as he sucks Steve's cock, Andrew slowly moving on from one finger to two, from two to three. Eventually Matt pulls off and twists his neck to look back at Andrew, says that he's ready. 

Andrew's lube-slick fingers fumble when he tries to open one of the condoms. He takes a deep, shuddery breath, concentrating really, really hard to use his powers to tear the wrapper open when it becomes obvious that his hands are worthless. He slides the condom on and uses the remaining lube to slick his dick up. 

He leans himself over Matt's back as he pushes in, guiding himself with one hand, going slow. Matt groans low in his throat as he does it, pressing his face into Steve's abs with a blissed-out look on his face while Steve pets his hair and squeezes his own dick at the base. His eyes are trained on Matt's arching back, dipped so that he can push back where he and Andrew are connected. Andrew freezes when he's as deep as he can get, his thighs pressed tight against the meat of Matt's ass, exactly where Andrew wants him.

"Move, please," Matt pleads, tone suggesting that this isn't the first time he's said it, just the first that Andrew's noticed, so Andrew does. Starts fucking him hard and deep enough that the whole room's echoing with the sound of it and their gasped breaths. Matt's got the head of Steve's dick back in his mouth again, can't take in any more without the risk of choking himself or accidentally catching him with his teeth. Steve's picking up Matt's slack, stroking himself and pushing the head of his cock forward onto Matt's tongue. It has Steve making the sort of noises Andrew only thought people made when they were dying. 

Andrew never breaks his stride, pushing himself into Matt's body over and over, makes sure to concentrate in that way Steve used to joke about, thinks about what he knows about anatomy and what he felt inside Matt's body with his fingers and uses his powers to make sure he does better than hit Matt's prostate with every stroke — makes it so that it's _always_ being stimulated, no matter as to if Andrew's physically pounding it or pulling out. 

Matt's been rutting his hips down into the pillow beneath him since Andrew started fingering him, fucking it. Andrew loves that Steve and he can get Matt to this point, stuck between the two of them and blissed out of his mind. They grin at one another from across the plane of Matt's body when Matt's gives a full-bodied shiver himself, his breathing coming to a halt as his body freezes beneath them.

He squeezes around Andrew's dick like a vice and he moans, low and hard around Steve's dick where it's still lodged in his mouth, coming all over himself and the pillow. Matt's orgasm sets Steve off, and he raises up so he's standing on his knees, enabling him jerk off against Matt's face. He comes all over, painting Matt's skin, some of it getting past his swollen mouth, stretched wide, gasping for breath, while the rest wets Matt's already sweat-drenched hair. Matt swallows it down like it's nothing, smacking his lips and sticking his tongue out for more as Steve pops the head of his cock back into his mouth, his thighs and stomach twitching in the aftermath.

Andrew's fucking _done_ after watching and feeling the two of them get theirs, digging his nails into his palms where his fisted hands rest atop Matt's hips, holding him steady mostly by pressure. His mouth falls slack as he keeps thrusting inside of Matt throughout his orgasm, keeps pushing back inside after he's done until it gets to be too much and it's either pull out or fucking _cry_.

He slides himself out of Matt as gently as he can before he topples over to the side. He crawls up to lay alongside Matt, pulls him into his body so that he can lick the rest of Steve's come off Matt's face. Steve groans and flops down onto the bed himself, his body adjacent to theirs. Andrew rubs his hand up and down Matt's back, rhythmic as they all fight to catch their breaths. He presses one final kiss to Matt's lips before he twists his head up to start in on Steve, feeding the after-taste of his come back to him. 

"Think we can get away with a nap before we gotta head home?" Matt mumbles after a while, fucked-out smile spread sleepily across his face.

*

Things are fine at home for a bit, but then, like always, the reality of his life creeps up on Andrew when he isn't looking. It makes him wonder if he'll ever _really_ escape it, even with his newfound skills.

His mom locks up in a fit of pain around noon, anguished sobs tearing themselves out of her throat. 

"Dad," Andrew yells, climbing up onto the bed to push her shoulders down so she doesn't accidentally hurt herself, "Mom's in pain, all right! She needs her pills. Where are you?" There's nothing for a few moments, but Andrew can't focus on anything other than his mom's miserable face. He yells again, searching around frantically to see if maybe some of her meds dropped on the floor, unnoticed. 

His dad never does come when Andrew calls for him. Andrew manages to help his mom calm down through breathing exercises the doctor thought him from what feels like a lifetime ago, her face still wracked with barely contained suffering. 

Eventually, Andrew hears his dad come tearing down the hallway. He brushes his mom's hair away from her face and murmurers that she'll be okay. His dad bursts into the room and grabs Andrew by his shoulder, drags him off the bed with a thud before yanking him back up and practically frog-marching him into the basement with one hand while angrily thrusting Andrew's camera around with the other. 

He shoves Andrew into a chair and then drops down into the one across from it. "Hoarding a five hundred dollar camera, while your mom dies in there?" He demands, apropos of nothing. All Andrew can think about is how much money his dad been sneaking out of his mom's pill fund or, fuck, his own college fund for all Andrew knows, to keep himself wallowing in a steady supply of booze and cigarettes that never seems to run dry, no matter how tight their money is that week. 

His dad keeps ranting. "I mean, how selfish can you be?" His voice starts rising when Andrew refuses to look up at him or say anything, not rising to the bait. He never lets up, tells Andrew that he watched some of the footage, calls Andrew a loser. Says that Matt and Steve and everyone else aren't really his friends and that he's an embarrassment. That Andrew's apparently spending his dad’s money — which is fucking news to Andrew. 

Finally Andrew can't take anymore and he calls his father out on one of his many, many inaccurate accusations and mocks him for it; says he's an idiot. As soon as he’s spoken he knows it was the wrong move to make, and his dad proves him right by flipping a table in his rage before jumping Andrew. 

Andrew can't take this shit any longer; he snaps. Uses his powers to bum rush his father across the room before shoving him against the wall so hard his back pops, lifts him off the ground before throwing him across the room and down onto the hard concrete floor.

*

He wishes knowing that Steve and Matt care for him — really care, so much so that he can _feel_ it so strongly that sometimes he thinks it’s the onset of another nosebleed until he realizes otherwise — meant something to him during times like this. That the knowledge could make all his other problems go away or help ease them, somehow. 

It doesn't. 

*

Steve's just gotten out of the shower and is halfway to dressed when his nose starts bleeding worse than any of the others he's had. He dives across the room and is reaching for his phone before he's even realized he'd moved. In the back of his mind can hear the phantom sound of Andrew crying and it unnerves him like nothing else he's ever experienced before.

He holds down the number two until it speed dials Andrew. It rings a few times before going to voicemail, so Steve hangs up and tries again. After the second time he fails to get an answer — each beat of silence between every unanswered ring making his heart creep higher and higher into his throat — he switches and tries to call Matt. 

"Shit I was just about to call you," Matt says in a rush as he answers on the first ring. "Are you okay? My nose is bleeding like a fucking fauc—"

"I can't reach Andrew," Steve interrupts, his voice slightly muffled because he's been trying to mop up his own nose with the towel he'd used to dry off with after he'd gotten out of the shower. "Can you go over to his place and make sure he's okay?"

" _Fuck_ ," Matt hisses. "Yeah. Yes—yes, okay I've got my coat on and am heading out now. Can you check the places where we usually hang out, just in case? It looks like the fucking sky is about to crack open out here. What if he gets caught up in it?"

*

"No dude, that's not _nothing_!" Steve yells and Andrew doesn't even know why he cares. His dad's right about him; Andrew's a loser and an embarrassment. "That's—your dad! Your dad beat the shit out of you! He can't do that to you!" 

"Will you stop acting like you give a shit!" Andrew's voice cracks near the end, straining to be heard over the thunder. Steve keeps trying to fly closer to him and it's making Andrew feel trapped. His body tightens up and his eyes dart to look anywhere but at Steve. He watches a bolt of lightning illuminate up a bank of clouds not that far off from where they are.

"Dude, why are you talking to me like this? I'm your best friend!" He turns back and sees that Steve's right in front of his face, maybe a foot away, face overtaken with hurt. He'd looked so relieved when he'd first found Andrew, then angry when he'd seen what Andrew's father had done to him. Andrew hates that he only seems to bring grief into Steve's otherwise perfect life; Steve's the type of person who deserves to have everything work out in their favor just because of how wonderful they are, and Andrew keeps getting in the way of that. He's never hated himself more than in this moment, wishes for the first time that he hadn't followed Matt and Steve down into that hole.

"I don't have any friends," Andrew shouts. "You were never my friend before this." 

"I hang out with you and Matt like _every day_ ," Steve insists. "We're supposed to fly around the world together, don't you—do you remember that? You think I'm—"

"Stop! Just stop talking to me," Andrew pleads. Steve keeps on going, talking fast and raising his voice to be heard over both the thunder and Andrew. "Why won't you just leave me alone?" 

The lightning is flashing closer and closer behind Steve. A strange sensation works its way up Andrew's spine, leaves him feeling sick; his hair rising to stand on end. "Steve! Steve, I'm telling you: get away from me! Please! Get away!" He can see that Steve's still talking, but Andrew can't hear anything over the thunder ringing in his ears. 

Lightning explodes a few yards away from Steve, the force of it making them both jolt; like a wave crashing into them, like they're out treading water somewhere in the ocean, not floating in the dark, nebulous sky like the actually are. Steve doesn't take notice, keeps on screaming at Andrew. 

Andrew makes a split second decision and uses his mind to yank Steve towards him. Just as his body crashes into Andrew's own, a lightning bolt strikes the air right where Steve'd been, residual energy shoving the both of them a decent distance away, nearly knocking the out of the sky.

Just like that, everything — the lightning, the thunder, it all stops. Steve pries one of his hands from where he'd gripped Andrew's jacket in fear and raises it to Andrew's face, the grip of his gloves catching against Andrew's skin. "Andrew," his voice is a mess, strange and choked off, it sounds loud in the absence of sound that surrounds them, "Andrew." He says it again, stronger this time, sounding more like himself, even though his face is a mixture of terror and astonishment. "Andrew, you saved my fucking life. _Again_ ," he stresses, before wrapping his arm around Andrew's shoulder and burying his face in Andrew's neck.

Andrew can't stop staring at the place where Steve had been. Steve could be dead, would be dead, and it all would have been Andrew's fault. He completely shuts down at the thought of it, just the thought of living in a reality where Steve _no longer fucking exists_ too much for him to handle after today.

He loses focus and watches as his camera drops from the sky, feels his body start to do the same, but Steve's there with a surprised and muffled _fuck_. He pries his other arm from where it was trapped between their chests to wrap around Andrew's back, supporting both of them. 

Andrew realizes that he's started crying, and with that realization comes hard, chest wracking sobs that hurt his ribs. He feels so embarrassed but he can't stop. He brings his arms up and clings to Steve, crying harder. The dark clouds around them finally release their water, and within seconds they're both soaked to the bone. Slowly, Steve starts to maneuver them down to solid earth. 

When they're about a halfways from the ground, Matt shows up, face whiter than a ghost. "Jesus, are you guys _okay_?" He asks in a rush. "I was searching fucking everywhere and then I saw the camera fall out of the clouds and I rushed over as fast as I could."

Andrew drops his eyes and through his tears and water dripping down his face makes out the blurry shape of his camera, clutched tight in Matt's hand and somehow manages to start crying _harder_. He breaks one of his arms away from Steve's back to reach out for Matt, and he comes to Andrew instantly. Together, the two of them support Andrew's weight the rest of the way down.

They land in a cornfield, the stalks protecting them from the worst of the rain, but the ground's already soaked. In the back of his mind Andrew registers the uncomfortable squish of mud underneath his jacket and jeans and knows that the three of them are going to be a mess. 

Matt curls around his back and buries his face in Andrew's neck, pressing words into his skin. _You're okay_ , he whispers, _We've got you_. Steve's pressed into his front, concerned face right in front of Andrew's, so close that their noses are squished together awkwardly and he has to cross his eyes to see him properly. He pulls away so he can stroke Andrew's face a few times, fingers careful around the bruises.

Steve reaches over Andrew to grab Matt's hand. He laces their fingers together and drops them down to rest on Andrew's hip. 

Andrew’s not sure how long they lie out there, wrapped around one another in the mud, but eventually the rain stops, and after that so do Andrew's tears, though he stopped physically sobbing not long after they hit solid ground again, for what little good it does for his shame. 

He's shivering and his legs are tingling so badly they hurt, but he doesn't want to move. "Steve," he finally says, his voice is completely fucked and it hurts to speak but he has to say this. Has to. "It's just I—I dunno what I did. I _lost control_ and—and I'm _so sorry_. This thing is just becoming a part of me now and I don't—" 

Matt and Steve shush him at the same time, cutting off his words. "It's okay, Andrew. I'm okay," he stresses. "We'll figure this out. All three of us, but," Andrew feels Steve's grip tighten on Matt's hand through his waterlogged jeans, "Andrew, you can't go back home. I know you've got your mom but—you _can't_."

Andrew nods and he knows that if he had anything left to give, he'd probably start crying again. 

*

He splits his time between Matt and Steve's places when they're not at school. Usually Steve's, because his mom is rarely home anymore like he'd confided to them while back, and his dad can't be bothered to care much what they do. Whenever he's at Matt's his Aunt Deb starts asking questions that he doesn't know the answers to and that's just something he doesn't want to deal with.

His dad calls and leave a couple of messages, threatening him to get his ass back home, but that's the extent of their interactions. One time when his dad goes out on a run to the liquor store, Andrew gathers up his courage and sneaks inside the house to see his mom. Turns out that she still hasn't had her prescriptions refilled. 

Andrew's heart sinks at the state of her, feels guilty when she confesses that she's worried about him and his father being all alone when she's gone. He grips her hand tightly between his and steels himself, tells her that he has _two_ people who love him, two great guys who're taking care of him; that she doesn't have to worry about him anymore, because they're helping him so he can take care of himself. Even through her pain, she smiles and says that she's so happy for him. That he's such a special person, that she isn't even surprised that two people fell in love with him. That she's shocked it's not more.

He kisses her goodbye and makes his way to the pharmacy, but the guy refuses to give Andrew a break on having to pay up front. Andrew gets so mad that he wants to rip the guy’s teeth out one by one, right from the root, but he manages to stop himself before he actually puts his mind to it. 

Andrew confesses it all to Steve later that night while Matt's still in the shower. Aunt Deb's been letting Matt stay over at Steve's practically all week ever since he confided that Andrew's going to be staying with Steve for a while because of issues with his dad, even though she usually draws the line when it comes to week nights.

The next morning, Steve tells Matt to stop by the bank when they're driving to school. He pulls eight hundred dollars out of the ATM using his mom's spare credit card and shoves it all at Andrew, some of the bills overflowing from his grasp so that they fall down next to his shoes in footwell of the back seat. 

Andrew can't even pretend that he can't accept it. Instead he drops the money onto the seat next to him and leans forward, wraps his arms around Steve's neck from behind, wishing the bench wasn't between them. He hears Matt unbuckle his seat belt and then feels him start to press kisses against the side of his face that isn't pressed against the back of Steve's head, before pulling away to do the same to Steve. "I love you guys," Matt breathes against their skin. "I love you so much."

*

His mom dies two days later and all Andrew can think about is how she went without pain. That thanks to Matt and Steve and Andrew, she had her pills and was able to die in peace. 

He wants to cry but he finds that he can't, because he's actually happy for her. She'd been in pain for so long and they'd already said their goodbyes that afternoon three days prior, so he can't help but think that it was her time to go. 

Andrew's father tries to start a fight with him when he calls Andrew home to tell him the news, says that the final straw that pushed her into deaths arms was the stress of Andrew running away from home, that it's all Andrew's fault. Andrew walks away feeling the best he's ever felt in that house, and it's not because his father keeps a wide breadth between them as he does it, eyes tinged with fear even as he continues to talk shit, but rather because Andrew knows that he could absolutely fucking _end_ his father if he wanted, yet he doesn't. Where his father has always failed and turned to violence, Andrew is starting to understand how it feels to deny that urge — even though he's stronger, maybe even because of it. It's like watching a gazelle pick a fight with a lion; raising to his father's rage is beneath him now. Always has been, probably.

There's only a few weeks left until graduation and the seniors have already taken their finals. Everyone knows if they're going to graduate or not, so it's not all that big of a deal if they bail on their remaining classes.

Matt asks his mom to pick up his and Andrew's diplomas if they're not back in time and Steve asks the same of his dad. When their parents ask where they're going, Matt mumbles something about a road trip and Andrew needing something to take his mind off his loss. They hide Matt's car out by the abandoned construction place where they learned how to fly, just in case anyone starts snooping around and asking questions. They stuff the keys in the visor and start pulling their bags out from the trunk so that they can get dressed.

Long johns, parkas, hiking boots, Canadian goose jackets, wool caps and socks, layers upon layers of sweaters, Arctic backpacking equipment. 

*

Tibet's just as beautiful as Andrew promised it would be. Matt drags him in close once they land on a mountain ridge a mile or so from one of the monasteries and half-shouts, "You made it!" right into Andrew's ear, shoving Andrew's camera into all three of their faces to capture their expressions before turning to record the landscape, gathering B-roll. Steve starts howling, the echo bouncing around in every direction, and Matt joins in, fucking screaming like a lunatic. Andrew shoves snow into their mouths to shut them up before they cause a fucking avalanche.

He can't take these assholes anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> the stars (sort-of) aligned for this fic. while trolling letters early-on in november, i saw this prompt and knew i really wanted to write it, so i bookmarked it in the hopes that i'd have time after my actual assignment to write a scene or two as a madness treat or something. 
> 
> as the deadline started getting closer, a big batch of pinch hits came out and i saw this was one of them, so i snagged it and here we are~
> 
> i hope it's what my recipient wanted! all of their optional details were flawless so i did my best to work them in. also, shout out to **p** for beta'ing this for me even though they didn't know the canon at all.


End file.
